{{Note|Command-line arguments override and take precedence over the configuration commands established in .nanorc|}}

{{Note|Command-line arguments override and take precedence over the configuration commands established in .nanorc|}}

Revision as of 16:42, 5 August 2013

GNU nano (or nano) is a text editor which aims to introduce a simple interface and intuitive command options to console based text editing. nano is the default console editor in distributions such as Ubuntu and supports features including colorized syntax highlighting, DOS/Mac file type conversions, spellchecking and UTF-8 encoding. nano opened with an empty buffer typically occupies under 1.5 MB of resident memory. nano Screenshot.

Package installation

Configuration

Creating ~/.nanorc

The look, feel and function of nano is typically controlled by way of either command-line arguments, or configuration commands within the file ~/.nanorc.
A sample configuration file is installed upon program installation and is located at /etc/nanorc.The file ~/.nanorc must be first created by the user:

Other definitions

Suggested configuration

Suspension

Unlike most interactive programs, suspension is not enabled by default. To change this, uncomment the 'set suspend' line in /etc/nanorc. This will allow you to use the keys Template:Keypress to send nano to the background.

Do not wrap text

If you are coming from another distribution, you might wonder about nano's strange behaviour, so just edit /etc/nanorc like this:

## Do not wrap text at all.
set nowrap

nano usage

Special functions

Template:Keypress key modified shortcuts (^) representing commonly used functions are listed along the bottom two lines of the nano screen.

Tips & tricks

Replacing vi with nano

Casual users may prefer the use of nano over vi for its simplicity and ease of use and may opt to replace vi with nano as the default text editor for commands such as visudo.

Method one

Warning: From man 8 visudo: Note that this can be a security hole since it allows the user to execute any program they wish simply by setting VISUAL or EDITOR.

sudo from the core repository is compiled with --with-env-editor by default and honors the use of the VISUAL and EDITOR variables. To establish nano as the visudo editor for the duration of the current shell session, set and export the EDITOR variable before calling visudo.

export EDITOR=nano

Example usage

export EDITOR=nano && sudo visudo

Method two

Warning: From man 8 visudo: Note that this can be a security hole since it allows the user to execute any program they wish simply by setting VISUAL or EDITOR.

The EDITOR variable can also be set within the following files for persistent use:

Example .bash_profile

Method three

Note: This method can be considered draconian and may not be suitable for all users. Nonetheless, the following procedure exists as a viable example solution.

Symbolic linking

As root, or with su -

Rename the vi executable to vi.old for ease of restoration:

# mv /usr/bin/vi /usr/bin/vi.old

Create a symbolic link from /usr/bin/nano to /usr/bin/vi

# ln -s /usr/bin/nano /usr/bin/vi

Assuming sudo is installed and properly configured. You will need to add vi to the IgnorePkg list in pacman.conf to make this permanent. Otherwise it will revert back to vi the next time it is updated.

Restoration of vi

Remove the /usr/bin/vi symbolic link:

unlink /usr/bin/vi

Rename the vi.old executable back to vi:

mv /usr/bin/vi.old /usr/bin/vi

Method four

Note: This method can be considered draconian and may not be suitable for all users. Nonetheless, the following procedure exists as a viable example solution.

Removal & symbolic linking

Use pacman to remove the vi package, its configuration, and all unneeded dependencies: